Doctor Poison is the name of two fictional villains who have battled Wonder Woman. Both villains were members of the super-villain team Villainy Inc.

Fictional character biography[edit]

Princess Maru[edit]

Doctor Poison I
Doctor Poison debuts in Sensation Comics #2.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Sensation Comics #2 (February 1942)
Created by	William Moulton Marston Harry G. Peter
In-story information
Alter ego	Princess Maru
Team affiliations	Villainy Inc.
Abilities	Expert in the use of poisons, toxins and plagues.

In 1942 Princess Maru became Doctor Poison, who disguising her gender via a bulky hooded costume and mask, was the leader of a Nazi spy ring whose ultimate goal was to wreak havoc in the US Army by contaminating the army's water with "reverso," a drug that "confuses the brain centers… [making] soldiers do the exact opposite of what they are told." This effects tens of thousands of soldiers. She kidnapped Steve Trevor and Diana Prince in an attempt to learn spy secrets. Wonder Woman escapes, but does not alert the army as Steve is still held in the fortress.

This plan is foiled by the Amazon heroine Wonder Woman in the first apppearence of the Holiday Girls, who pretend to just be a parade and gets the guards to dance for them before hancuffing them and Doctor Poison is imprisoned after her identity is revealed, but she later escapes and, in 1943, now working for Japan, grounds all US planes along the front of China via a "green gas" which "enters the carburetor and stops the engine." Wonder Woman halts this scheme as well, and Doctor Poison is imprisoned on Transformation Island, the Amazon penal colony where she pretends to be reformed. She is not seen again until 1948, when she and seven other female super-villains escape and pool their talents as Villainy Inc.; led by the Saturnian slaver Eviless, the evil eight are again defeated by Wonder Woman. Throughout most of her first appearance Doctor Poison was believed to be a male due to her disguise, and she retained this "drag king" garb in her later appearances; whether this guise was simply a necessity of assuming power within the male-dominated Axis governments or indicative of something else is difficult to say at this late date.

Granddaughter[edit]

In recent years, an unnamed grandchild of the original Doctor Poison appears in league with the demi-goddess Devastation. Doctor Poison's gender remains ambiguous, the only clues being long fingernails and a lipsticked grimace. She also joined the latest incarnation of Villainy Inc. and once again battled Wonder Woman. This incarnation of Doctor Poison confirmed that her grandmother did battle Queen Hippolyta as Wonder Woman during WWII. She also explains that her grandmother met her own demise by the creation of the drug called "Reverso". The original Doctor Poison accidentally reversed her own growth patterns and had forgotten the antidote by becoming too young too fast, eventually reverting to a fetus and then nothing.

Doctor Poison is one of the villains sent to retrieve the Get Out of Hell free card from the Secret Six.

Doctor Poison was later asked to be a part of the Secret Society of Super Villains, which she accepted. Joining the other scientists on the team, she was assigned to collect soil samples from Logor Jasenovac, Croatia. She added her samples with that of other areas on Earth where genocide took place and helped create the new Wonder Woman villain Genocide. Following the Final Crisis, she was with Cheetah's Secret Society of Super Villains.

Powers and abilities[edit]

Doctor Poison is an expert in the use of poisons, toxins and plagues.

In other media[edit]

Television[edit]

• Doctor Poison appears in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Joker: The Vile and the Villainous." She is seen working as a bartender at a tavern populated by D-list supervillains when Joker pays a visit to it and meets Weeper.

See also[edit]

• List of Wonder Woman enemies

References[edit]

• Beatty, Scott (2009). Wonder Woman: The Ultimate Guide To The Amazon Princess. Dorling Kindersley Publishing. pp. 82–83. ISBN 0-7894-9616-X. 

External links[edit]

• Doctor Poison Rapsheet
• Gay League Profile
• The Unofficial Doctor Poison Biography